Valerio Financial

  Have you ever made goals that you were excited to track but lost steam after a few weeks or months?  Well, 2021 is the year to stop with the "good intentions" and create goals that will keep you motivated throughout the year. Of course, there are many areas where you could and should set goals, but we will focus on financial goals for now. What are your 2021 Financial Goals?   Get out of debt? Build an emergency fund? Are you saving for a car, a home, college, or retirement? Or maybe you want to be more intentional with your spending, or create monthly budgets and tracking expenses consistently. Whatever your 2021 financial goals are, let's go through a step-by-step approach to creating goals that will work for you. First and foremost, take some time to reflect on 2020. Stay with me here, I know 2020 was a challenging year for many people, but the idea is to improve and to ensure that you are moving in the right direction, you have to reflect. Think about what work...

Welcome back! All right, now its time to get busy!  Last time we discussed the steps to gather and determine what you owe, which was a critical step to getting started.  You have to know what you are dealing with so you can tackle it with gazelle intensity.  Now, let's take action and continue with the steps to get out of debt. Steps 6 - 10 of my 10 Steps to Get Out of Debt 6)  Breathe, I promise, you can do this. 7)  Starter Emergency Savings  -  before you start paying off debt, it is essential to save up or set aside an emergency fund.  Dave Ramsey suggests that you save $1,000, if you already have more than $1,000 in savings, use any savings above the $1,000 to pay down debt.  This will provide a buffer should you have a real emergency while trying to get out of debt. If you don't...

Simply put, a starter emergency fund is a little buffer between you, and the curveballs life throws at us. It is a fund for unexpected emergencies that pop up at the most inconvenient time, which is the last thing you want to deal with, especially when you are trying to get out of debt. Dave Ramsey recommends saving $1,000 as your starter emergency fund. The idea behind it is not to provide a cushy cushion but rather be a safety net you can fall back on in case of an actual emergency while you are making progress knocking down debt.  This amount makes some people nervous, and there are some valid reasons, in some cases, so I will say if your job or income is precarious right now, then it may be a season of stacking up cash rather than knocking down debt, but that's a whole different topic. You have to honestly evaluate your circumstance to determine what is best for your situation. I say "honestly" because we can play games in our minds and convince ourselves that "n...